3 Blue 1 Brown, it’s a mathematics channel with, as far as I’m concerned, unparalleled production quality.
He’s a Stanford Mathematician who covers everything in topics from topology, number theory, calculus with nothing required beyond High School/1st year undergraduate maths.
Also, his visualisations are nothing short of beautiful.
His linear algebra series is fantastic study material in helping poeple to picture just exactly what a linear transformation/determinant/eigenvalue looks like!
Alex French Guy Cooking is one of my favourite channels. Entertaining and informative and who else builds custom noodle-drying equipment for a series about instant ramen?
The turbo-charged camping stove wok burner is a bit alarming though. Just a bit.
AvE is great. His humor is a bit of an acquired taste, and not in a good way, but he’s definitely knowledgeable in a field I’m completely unfamiliar with. He does a lot of incredible tear downs and evaluations of power tools and other things like that with pretty stunning analysis.
I cannot stress more, though, that his humor is an acquired taste. If his content and knowledge was any less I would have dropped him in a heartbeat. Maybe it’s just my culture, but the sexual overtone can go off the wall at times.
Seconded. I especially recommend his teardown of the Juicero, in which he displays his insights into design for manufacture, plastics, metallurgy, electrical engineering, etc, peppered with hilarious and insightful jabs at VC culture. For me, it's his masterpiece.
My wife recently watched all 45 minutes and was entertained throughout, despite her not being technical at all.
Speaking of which, I also share a distaste for his "engineering boys club" sense of humour. I think his heart is in the right place (though who knows?), but it's definitely from another era, one that I won't be sad to see fade off into the distance. That being said, the rest of the components of his humour (obscure Canadianisms, etc) are great and I enjoy the particularity of it.
"anyone in a position of authority". Hmmm. Let's bring him up on charges before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, eh?
AvE is great, and if you watch enough of his episodes you'll see that the old-school jokes are matched by an acceptance of all, save, perhaps, the terminally censorious. I'm looking forward to seeing him teach his daughter to weld.
The Great War - Covers World War 1 as it happened week-by-week one hundred years ago. I love it because I'm a history buff, but WW2 is covered so well in other media that this is a welcome change of topic
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUcyEsEjhPEDf69RRVhRh4A
I was the sort of person who often looked down upon history as boring and useless but The Great War is such an amazing channel and changed my outlook entirely.
10 mins a week for a wrap-up of the world exactly 100 years ago, I love it, it's so fascinating and terrifying at the same time. For such a different existence there's so many parallels with the world today.
Probably not what you're searching for, but youtube is full of recordings of tech talks and I watch them all the time. If I want to hear about a particular topic I'll just search for the topic or "<topic> talk", but I also have a few channels related to conferences and things like that bookmarked. They're only useful once a year, but it saves me from searching randomly when I don't have anything particular in mind: GOTO Conferences, Jane Street (they recently started uploading videos of talks they host at the company), Strange Loop, Curry On!, PapersWeLove, CppCon, InfoQ, Racket Lang, ICFP.
byoblu (italian "videoblog" about politics featuring lots of interviews and discussions, always to be taken with a grain of salt) https://www.youtube.com/user/byoblu
Then, a lot of comedy channels of dubious value which I'd rather not embarrass myself with on here.
smartereveryday I love (particularly the enthusiasm), numberphile too.
Anything (not a channel name, just anything) by Tom Scott, his recent gameshow has been pretty good as it's like Only Connect but I've got a better chance of answering the questions. Huge backlog of things too and as he's got more popular he's got more access to interesting places and things. Just seems like a genuinely nice guy explaining things he finds interesting. Probably worth starting with "things you might not know" or "amazing places".
CollegeHumor - can be hit and miss but the ratio is good enough for me. They did a series of a gameshow called "Umm actually" which was great.
Gus Johnson - never quite sure where I am on things going too far on these but it keeps me laughing and coming back.
EEVBlog - electrical engineering and opinionated hardware teardowns from Australia
bigclive - teardowns of cheap ebay stuff. And lots of LEDs
Regular car reviews - Reviews of cars, but not so much the cars themselves as the sociological parts - why was this car built? For who? Who bought it? What were they trying to signal?
Doug DeMuro - The opposite. Car reviews that focus on the tiny things like weird quirks of the interior
ADVchina/laowhy86/serpentza - Life in China
Geoff Marshall - UK trains
Steve1989mreinfo - Reviews of MREs. Including unboxing and eating long-expired WW2 rations. Who knew canned peanut butter could last 70 years?
Retro Game Mechanics Explained - Very in-depth yet easy to understand explanations of quirks of nintendo hardware programming like scroll registers etc
Techmoan - Obsolete and forgotten media formats (Tefifon!)
Technology Connections - Some light technology history
The 8-bit guy/8-bit keys - 8-bit computer and keyboard history, repair, restoration
VectrexRoli - Old game consoles
TNT Amusements - Arcade game hardware
Lazy Game Reviews - Retro IBM PC, retro computer and modern gaming content
None at all - maybe the odd music video from 'my generation' (1970s-90s, love Eurythmics, later Fleetwood Mac, Spandau Ballet, Steve Winwood, Queen...). I prefer the factual written word for hobby stuff (electronics/vintage computing) as it's much easier to run through the material at your own pace and hop around articles. Maybe it's a topic/generation thing - it's not a phobia as I'm a 'Technical Delivery Manager' doing cloudy/infrastructure stuff.
Same. I'm a programmer, probably much younger than you, but I dislike the video format. It's harder to follow, more time consuming and less efficient. I might watch something occasionally from a recommendation, or watch some comedy or lectures by myself from time to time, but I don't watch anything regularly the way I check my RSS feeds with text articles regularly. Same applies to podcasts.
I do like the same music, despite of being born later. So maybe it's determined by one's music taste? ;)
He does Homelab-style networking, linux, and server management, but also does very detailed teardowns of random or eccentric electronics. For someone like me with very little EE background, he explains the circuitry and the industrial design in a very digestible and interesting way. His teardown of an old traffic controller PSU is one of my favorites (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-F7nKoNqjM).
I don't watch anything particularly, although after a stressful week I sometimes like to relax by getting mildly drunk and watching all those 'FAIL' YT clips.
However a few weeks ago I remember a HN article that linked to some Canadian who milled a nut and bolt out of potato. His clips were great and I don't even have a clue about engineering. Does anyone know who this is as I am having a hard time finding it again.?
Alex French Guy Cooking (he's French, he cooks, he builds crazy contraptions to help, check out the video about the supposedly heavy duty pasta machine he bought from China to help him make ramen noodles faster)
Tom Scott, I think a lot of us watch Tom Scott!
Steve Mould, doing science stuff
Minute Physics, doing short and accessible Sharpie-drawing animated explanations of various interesting concepts in physics
Techmoan does some good videos on retro audio technology. And other things, but those are the ones I watch apart from the occasional interesting kitchen gadget review (yes, someone makes an appliance designed solely to cook bacon. No, you shouldn't buy one).
The Gaming Historian, well-researched videos about various bits of gaming history (the latest being an exploration of the Sega 32X).
8-bit Theory, a channel exploring game soundtracks from a musical theory perspective, including videos exploring things like why Mario's soundtrack sounds so happy, how the sax solo in a particular track in Mario Kart 8 works, or how themes evolve through multiple iterations of a particular franchise.
Retrohistories, another gaming history channel, doesn't produce a lot but I like what he does do. Although I should mention, he's a friend of mine!
Guilliame Erard has some very interesting videos about aikido, footage from various demonstrations by prominent aikidoka, interviews, etc. One recent video I found very interesting indeed was an exploration of daito-ryu aikijujitsu, the immediate ancestor of aikido.
I also watch a whole load of Minecraft players, either for building ideas and techniques, information on redstone (although someone needs to actually write this all up somewhere in a coherent fashion, I have never been able to find such a document if it exists already, it's clearly in people's heads), or just the gameplay videos from various things (mostly Minecraft Evolution or other series by the people who are involved in the Evolution SMP - I am for example watching almost everything NettyPlays is putting out at the moment).
What I don't watch regularly is anything about programming.
Clickspring - Builds things in brass. Super detail and high production quality. Currently working on making an authentic replica of The Antikythera Mechanism from raw metal stock.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCworsKCR-Sx6R6-BnIjS2MA
Others are either gaming related that I don't watch much anymore (use twitch for that) or things that have been mentioned several times already.
Binging with Babish is great- well done cooking videos, interesting things. I also like this guy JunsKitchen who cooks relaxing meals with his cats in the background. Finally Depression era cooking taught by a lovely grandmother named Clara, titled "Depression Era Cooking."
I enjoy youtube cooking shows, they help me relax (and give me ideas for fun weekend projects).
I spend a lot of time on YouTube watching what I call “educational channels” on topics ranging from science to geopolitics to philosophy. Here's a list of a bunch of them.
I'm using YT for entertainment. Once in a month I might find myself watching a LiveOverflow video.
I watch Ice poseidon et al. daily.
Many of the team members were on Twitch and got banned from it. I used to follow Greek God and Sodapoppin though I no longer care as the YT equivalent is much more fun.
I also like to watch videos from FearsomeFire and Matthias.
I'm in to DOS and 8-bit micro era computing, so in that category:
LGR (aka Lazy Game Reviews)
The 8-Bit Guy
Nostalgia Nerd
RetroManCave
I'm specifically in love with the techniques used by games in that era, and GameHut has some interesting explanations of how he and other developers pulled off some of the tricks they did on the Genesis and Saturn. I really wish there were more channels doing things like that.
Ben Eater has an interesting series on building a computer from ICs.
ScottManley plays a whole lot of Kerbal Space Program and talks about rocket science.
I also watch a few LPers: ChipCheezumLPs, StrawHatNo, MenDrinkinCoffee. They're just interesting and/or funny. I'd dig an informative and exclusively DOS/8-bit micro era LPer I'd think.
Is it just me, or is Youtube completely terrible about discoverability and recommendations? It only seems to recommend me things I've already watched or people who yell a lot.
Great explanations and tutorials for those like me aspiring to be a machinist while learning a variety of metalworking techniques and with good humour.
Most of what I regularly watch has already been mentioned except for one: Tips from a Shipwright (https://www.youtube.com/user/TipsfromaShipWright). From their website, "Tips from a Shipwright was started ... with the purpose of creating a high quality video content resource for wooden boat builders, sailing enthusiasts and fellow lovers of wooden boats."
Louis Sauzedde's personality is great. His experience as a master shipwright is obvious, and I'm always amazed by the tips, tricks, and techniques that he employs while designing, building, and maintaining boats. He has a bunch of different videos, but a good starting point is probably "Season 1: Building the TotalBoat - How to build a work skiff" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C22Crc7XHoI&list=PLzlN3A2DLg...).
- Most channels by IDW (Intelectual Dark Web) people, though when you know all the arguments, due to overwatching, it can get a bit tiring.
- Tom Scott, igsquared, JunsKitchen, Alex French Cooking Guy, New York Times, Great Big Story, Strange Parts, TED, and a few philosophy ones from Brazil.
Four Eyes (amazing furniture builds), I like to make stuff, make something, April Wilkerson, Seth’s bike hacks, single track sampler, skills with Phil, BKXC, Alan Thrall, Buff Dudes
Basically a mix of wood working, mountain biking and weight lifting
Impact Theory hosted by Tom Bilyeu - "An interview series that explores the mindsets of the world's highest achievers to learn their secrets of success."
I'm a Rachel Maddow addict.
They dont show it in my part of the world, so every morning (Tuesday to Sat) I jump on at 9am and watch it live on youtube... some very kind souls all hijack it and stream it live for free.
The streamers change periodically as they get shut down, but its pretty reliably easy to jump on and search for LIVE "rachel maddow"
I run across 'Binging with babish' but word 'binging' always turned me off, so I would skip it. What got my wife and I to try some different cooking was chef John with foodwishes.com
Joe Rogan Experience (and occasionally other stand up comic podcasts like Your mom's house, Bill Burr etc) , Boxing Legends, Computer/Number-phile, umm sometimes I will watch TED and technology related talks.
Siraj Raval is a hack. Often times, his code is incomplete, unrunnable, undocumented, in dangerously improper syntactical form, and sometimes downright stolen from others (without given proper credit.)
But for those unfamiliar with Forgotten Weapons, it's not a rah-rah-fight-the-Man channel. It is a history channel that specialises in firearms. The episode about the OSS Liberator pistol would be a great starter, a mix of political and military history. Is it ethical to encourage an occupied people to try to shoot their occupiers with a flimsy, unreliable, inaccurate weapon?
Second for Forgotten Weapons. The tone is just right - it's about design questions with a touch of history thrown in. I'm interested in both those things so it's fun for me even though I've never owned a gun and haven't fired one in 20 years. I'll be honest though - watching it makes me really tempted to go out to a range some day.
I used to never watch Youtube and then I got a samsung 5k smartTV with the youtube app built in and I fell in love. There are such great content creators there once you get through the mess. The first thing I do when I get home from work to decompress is load up the youtube app on my TV and check the releases on the channels I follow.
I love learning about how battles are won and lost, and how history evolved and countries got to be. Normans were Vikings, English nobles come from the French, . . .
A bunch now a days. One of my favorites is Siraj Raval. He does them on AI or ML specifically.
Then a bunch others in the technology space including several from Google are very good. Usually also watch most of the Google I/O videos for sessions was not able to attend.
But then I also watch Josh Lloyd during the NBA basketball season.
There is this balance between the person doing the video and then the content. I find myself more and more needing a decent person doing the video unless it is super compelling content.
Maybe it’s because I haven’t really used YouTube much, but there seem to be very few content producers that deliver content which is based on any form of scientific methodology or even any form of real journalism.
I can quickly find a ton of “documentaries” on Ancient Rome for instance, and I have watched quite a few. I happen to have made the rare mix of CS and history when I took my original candidate degree at the university of Aarhus, and I specialized in Ancient Rome. I’ve yet to see anything on YouTube on Ancient Rome, that wasn’t amateurish at best unless it came from somewhere else, like the BBC.
I think that is the best way to put it. YouTube just doesn’t seem like a good place for production of knowledge, and as much as I enjoy watching a guy build a clay cabin from the ground up with his bare hands, I’d frankly rather read a book.
I think that your analogy could be extended to the internet as a whole. Just because there is a lot of crap there, doesn't mean you can't find good stuff as well.
He’s a Stanford Mathematician who covers everything in topics from topology, number theory, calculus with nothing required beyond High School/1st year undergraduate maths.
Also, his visualisations are nothing short of beautiful.